As student who threw fire extinguisher is jailed after his mother turned him in, would you shop your own child?

MY SONS HATE ME, BUT I WAS RIGHT TO HAVE THEM LOCKED UP, says CAROL SALDINACK

What does a mother do if she finds out her child has committed a serious ­criminal act?

Tania Garwood must have known when she ­realised it was her son who hurled a fire extinguisher off a roof during the ­student riots that he would probably go to prison if he was caught.

Yet she chose to do what she believed was morally right, and told the police about 18-year-old Edward.

This week he was jailed for two years and eight months - a sentence some feel is too harsh, and others believe is entirely appropriate given that he could easily have killed a police officer or another student protester.

Tough love: Tania Garwood arrives at court withher son Edward Woollard before he was sentenced to two years and eight months in jail. Carol Saldinack knows how she feels after turning two of her sons in

As he begins his sentence, I can understand all too well his mother’s potent mixture of feelings: regret for what she has done, but also a quiet resolve that she did the right thing.

WHEN MY SON WAS SENTENCED I WISHED I'D KEPT QUIET, WRITES SUSAN GALE

In my heart of hearts, if I had known what would happen the day I shopped my son to the police - and that he’d never forgive me or talk to me again - I don’t think I’d have done it.

Probably like Tania Garwood, I thought Oliver would get a slap on the wrist, a few nights behind bars at the local police station that would teach him a lesson.

I didn’t realise he would go to prison, and I certainly didn’t realise he would go down for so long. It’s a terrible ­situation for any mother to find herself in, and I live with my decision every day.

Oliver’s father and I split up when he was four, but we tried to give our son the perfect upbringing. He went to £25,000-a-year public school - St Bede’s in Hailsham, East Sussex - but started dabbling with cannabis aged 14.

By the time he was 21, he was mixing with a bad crowd and clubbing all the time. His behaviour had become erratic, and when I found a wrap of brown powder on the kitchen table I knew I had to do something decisive.

Oliver was asleep on the sofa when the officers arrived. They searched him and found another wrap of brown powder - which turned out to be ecstasy. Then they took him outside and searched his car. What they found in the boot shocked me to the core - £10,000 worth of ecstasy. Oliver was in much deeper than I could ever have ­imagined.

Instead of a slap on the wrist, he was charged with possession with intent to supply and in April 2009 was given an 18-month prison ­sentence. The sentence could have been much longer, but the judge accepted Oliver was a ­runner for a drugs gang and not a ring leader.

I was devastated. It was the last thing I’d wanted to happen. Oliver hasn’t spoken to me since. He refused to let me visit him in prison and never replied to my many letters.

My biggest fear was that prison would make him even worse. Oliver was released after five months and went to live with his father, who gave him a job. He’s 24 now and has started his own ­property ­developing business. At least he’s got his life back on track, but it’s heartbreaking for me not being involved in his life any more.

I dread the future. One day he’ll get married and have children, and it will be even more painful. My younger son Jonathan, 22, who still lives at home with me in Haywards Heath, tells me bits about Oliver’s life, but not much. He’s very loyal to his brother. It’s a strain on my relationship with Oliver’s father, but I think he understands why I did it.

In one respect, I still think I did the right thing. Oliver could have got even more involved with drugs and ended up dead or serving a much longer prison sentence. I know what an agonising decision Tania Garwood had to make.

As a parent, you have to teach your children that their actions have consequences. I know exactly what she is going through right now. It’s something I have to live with everyday.People stop me in the street and say: ‘You did the right thing.’ But most days it doesn’t feel like it.

I ­understand because in 2007, I also found myself in a situation where, whatever the consequences, I had only one choice.

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My two older sons, Luke and Oliver, then 27 and 24, attacked and seriously injured a man who lost the sight in his right eye as a result.

When I heard from someone locally about the assault, which grew out of a pointless ­argument in the queue of a takeaway ­restaurant, I felt physically sick.

The question that haunted me was what if it had been one of my boys, instead of that other man, lying ­helpless in a pool of blood?

It took me 24 nightmarish hours before I contacted the police. It was not an easy decision, but I still believe it was the right one. As a result, Luke and Oliver were sentenced to two years each for GBH.

Perhaps naively, I believed they would serve their time, learn an invaluable lesson and emerge as wiser young men, able to see why I did what I did. That has not happened.

My sons have barely spoken to me since they were released after a year.

My hesitant phone call to the police sparked an internet hate campaign against me, destroyed my relationship with four of my six children, has meant I cannot see my grandchildren - and overwhelmed me with fear that I’ve failed as a mother.

Yet if I faced the same dilemma again, I would respond the same way.

I can never be sure if my sons would eventually have handed themselves in. What I do know is that crime, especially ­violent crime, must be punished.

Justice has to come before love. If it does not, we are effectively saying that the victim’s pain and fear is less important than our natural desire to protect our families.

It doesn’t take much compassion to put yourself in the position of someone who has been beaten. Once you’ve done it, how does it feel to think your attacker could be protected from the law by their family while you suffer?

The man my sons turned on could have been completely blinded. They left him seriously injured and didn’t even stop to make an anonymous call for an ambulance.

I’ve met him and said sorry on their behalf but, to my knowledge, they have still not apologised.

At least Edward Woollard has expressed regret for his actions. I hope he and his mother have the strength to support each other throughout his time in prison.

If he has a moment of criminal ­recklessness on his conscience, she has her son’s future criminal record on hers.

The regrettable truth is that young men do stupid things. Luke and Oliver had been drinking and were pumped up after going to the gym. Woollard was no doubt full of adrenaline in the heat of the moment. But that can’t shield them from the consequences of their stupidity.

My sons blame me for reporting them to the police. The student ­protesters blame the Government for driving them on to the streets. There are all sorts of excuses out there: unemployment, alcohol, poor education. But violence is always wrong.

You can’t negotiate that standard away by saying: ‘Well, it isn’t really wrong in some circumstances.’ Equally, you can’t say: ‘It doesn’t count if it is my child who hit someone over the head.’

That’s the kind of selfish logic used by toddlers when they’re caught out. They hide behind their parents, or point at other people and say it was their fault. But what’s acceptable in a two-year-old is not for adults who expect to be treated fairly under the law.

In my opinion, far more families should come forward when they know a brother, sister or child has committed a crime. That sounds like a hard and controversial stand to take, but it is simply doling out the treatment that same family would demand if one of their own had been hurt.

Having the courage to make people you love take responsibility for a crime - when it would be far easier to ignore it - should be admired, not ­condemned.

If a parent struggles with his or her conscience and then comes forward, it should not be seen as a ‘betrayal’. It is an expression of how much you care about your child.

Dangerous: Tania Garwood has been praised for turning in her son after he threw the extinguisher from the roof of Millbank Tower

Near miss: The fire extinguisher clattered to the ground just a few feet from where Met Police officers were standing in the courtyard

Honestly wanting them to face their own actions, and show remorse, means that you care about their future development as well-rounded human beings. Parents, on the whole, want their children to be happy - and real happiness doesn’t come from ignoring the truth.

Bringing up my children was damned hard work at times. I always tried to do my best for them and instill a sense of right and wrong.

Until Luke and Oliver were ­convicted, I truly felt I had a good relationship with my children. But the fact that my sons could do what they did to an innocent man - and then create the subsequent rift in the family, makes me feel I’ve failed them.

While I don’t regret acting on my conscience, I do bitterly regret the unhappiness that has followed.

To be told your own children ‘hate your guts’ is not an experience I’d wish on any mother. You don’t ever stop loving your children and, deep down, I’ve got reason to hope they still love me.

But will I ever be able to put my arms round my sons again? I don’t know.

Any parent who makes the choice to report his or her child, is to be applauded. They should also be warned that doing it hurts like hell.

Near miss: The canister missed police below by inches. Tania Garwood said that her son should be punished, but one wonders if she regrets her actions after he was sentenced to two years and eight months in jail?

Poised: Wollard was pictured brandishing the extinguisher moments before hurling it to the ground. Edward Woollard has apologised and show remorse for his actions, something Carol Saldinack doesn't believe her sons have done to date

A young idiot, yes, but did he deserve 32 months inside?

By BEL MOONEY

Building bridges: Carol Saldinack's sons haven't spoken to her since she turned them in to the police. It remains to be seen if Edward Woollard and his mother Tania Garwood remain on speaking terms following his custodial sentence

She walked into the court clasping the hand of her 18-year-old son, encouraging him forward as she’s surely done all his life. But I doubt if Tania Garwood had any real idea of what she was leading him to.

Most parents will feel pity for her. She probably ­imagined her reckless fool of a son being ­punished with a hefty fine or a community service order. When, instead, her son, with no previous convictions, was ­sentenced to two years and eight months in jail this week, she broke down in court, inconsolable.

Before the trial, she said: ‘I believe he deserves to be ­punished. I just hope it is the right punishment.’

And that comment takes us to the very heart of the issue. The sentencing of Edward Woollard, has ­provoked intense debate.

At one extreme, there is the ­predictable online vitriol from those who call this young man ‘scum’ and a ‘thug’ and scream that the ­sentence isn’t long enough. There’s a lot of class ­animosity in some of the comments - as if studying A-levels makes you part of some ­pampered elite.

At the other end of the scale are those who suspect that this ­middle-class youngster from a top sixth-form college is being made an ­example of simply because the Establishment has to crack down on the student movement.

There will be more protests; let this be a warning to parents and teachers to keep the kids at home.

Justice Geoffrey Rivlin QC said that it was ‘deeply regrettable, indeed a shocking thing’ for a court to sentence a young man like ­Woollard to ‘a substantial term of ­custody’. Why ‘shocking’?

Because the learned judge knows full well that he’s sent the sheltered and naïve teenager to a young offenders’ institution. These are tough places, rife with chronic ­mental health issues.

With those babyfaced looks and that background, not to mention the publicity surrounding the case, Edward’s life will be made sheer hell.

Do I hear you protest that he’ll ‘only’ serve one year and four months? And that he deserves it? Well, the concept of ‘just deserts’ is never ­crystal clear. In all such cases, we have to see the punishment in context and ask what purpose it will serve.

It is no way to defend Edward Woollard’s stupid and potentially lethal irresponsibility to wonder if this isn’t an example of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

When I was a teenager, I was very close to a young man who served three to six months for theft in a young offenders’ institution (then called a detention centre) only to emerge as a far harder person in every respect than he had been when sentenced - and destined to re-offend.

Prison will not make Edward ­Woollard a better man. Far from being rehabilitated, he’s more likely to need rehabilitation when he comes out, with his spirit ­broken, his life in tatters.

Two months in the slammer would have given him a short, sharp shock to remember all his life. Any longer is surely a waste of taxpayers’ money.

Perhaps you’ll argue that his imprisonment will protect the ­innocent public from fire extinguishers being chucked on their heads from high buildings. But Woollard’s act of criminal stupidity was almost ­certainly a one-off.

Young people (and older ones too) caught up in the group ­hysteria of a demonstration (or a strike) often do things they’d shrink from if they stopped to weigh up the consequences.

Rational thought stays at home when banners and batons are raised. Policemen smash heads. Idiots insult war memorials.

Protesters throw marbles under the hooves of police horses. It’s always a seething, screaming melee in which terrible mistakes are made and the real instigators of violence are too smart to get caught.

Will depriving irresponsible young show-off Edward Woollard of his liberty, education and future ­prospects stop a single protester from lashing out in the future? I doubt it very much.

So we arrive at the inescapable conclusion that he is being ­punished to make an example. Meanwhile, a youth who beats up a man trying to protect his own car from vandalism, gets a community service order.

A convicted paedophile who ­subjected a three-year-old girl to a terrifying ordeal gets a mere five years. The policeman who may have caused the death of Ian Tomlinson during the G20 riots does not face criminal charges.

So - ‘the right punishment’? ­Justice wears a blindfold to appear even-handed, yet regrettably, it is often simply blind.

Of course, I condemn the moment of madness which led Woollard to hurl that heavy canister from the roof.

But it will be a real tragedy if the only life ‘lost’ in this incident proves to be that of the young man himself.